Editor’s note: All opinions expressed in this article belong to their respective author(s). Check our section “Voices” dedicated to opinion pieces on AUI Chronicle. This piece has been co-authored with Karim Bahoum.
As Morocco grows to become a host for international educational systems, new problems and concepts emerge in the Moroccan educational landscape, making them interesting study-cases. It is almost inevitable, to scrutinize the concept of universities without having the Plato’s Academy broached on the table. In essence, Plato’s Academy was founded in the 15th century by Plato, and its aim was to discuss and spread knowledge in a structured manner.
Based on that aim, many schools came to life with different philosophies, but they kept the same motto which is “Create and Teach Knowledge”. A sole purpose that is still considered until this day, albeit the paradigm shift on how universities treat students, and the all-inclusive characteristic which delineates the university concept. This paradigm shift brought many concerns about how universities consider their students. These concerns knew some heavy criticism from higher education conservationists. In light of telltale signs and indications, many conservationists acknowledged the costumery treatment of students but they changed the direction of their outer jib and started arguing that establishing the student-customer concept with the student will turn universities to a business model.
“Are we customers?”, a key question that confronted us while spending our higher education at a liberal art education system.
“In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.”
Yogi berra
In other words, all theories and ideologies (eg. Liberal arts, capitalism) seem coherent, but once we put them into the playground, telltale signs start to reveal. We will discuss these indications with respect to AUI. However, it is important to note that this applies to multiple liberal arts universities.
The 50% Theory Adopted by The University on the basis of ensuring safety measures during the pandemic
The 50%-in theory seemed logical and fair given the low number of facilities that the university has. At first, the decision seemed like it will be representative of students’ votes and claims. Only the university made a decision on who will be brought to campus. Moreover, there was no decision about the rotation between all the students on campus, to lessen the tension in the student body. It seems like AUI is trying to attract more students, considering the competitive nature of the academic sphere in Morocco. It conveys the impression that their strategy focuses on marketing the institution’s surroundings more than its academics which might explain why only one group was accepted largely. Such logic only makes sense in case students are considered as customers.
Indeed, for any reasonable person, bringing only 50% to campus might imply that the price of tuition and campus-related activities would not be the same for off-campus students since they are not benefiting from the same experience. The decision of paying the same common fees makes us question the intention behind it. Referring to the SGA, the common fees not only cover accessing facilities but also the salary of the people working at AUI. However, one could say that the university’s latest shift in strategy makes us believe that their new priorities are focused on marketing the campus to increase the number of students rather than the quality of the education.
The Over-recruitment of students
The latest over-recruitment of students focused on selling the campus and the experience rather than academics. In other words, it seems that the focus is on sale more than the delivery of a good sustainable educational product. The latter has been witnessed with the problematic quality of the Fall 2020 online education.
In this century, it is hard to imagine the school-student relationship without bringing the fact that students are treated as customers. Sadly, this paradigm shift of viewing students is deeply rooted in higher education decisions.
Before the Pandemic
Crisis periods re-surface existing problems in an institution. Before Covid-19, the student-customer relationship practice was implemented. However, the emerging pandemic was able to emphasize clearly the student-customer relationship. Let’s take a step back before the pandemic and analyze the situation closely by focusing on two important elements.
For instance, retrieving transcripts comes with a service price. We pay for books, albeit the fact that we can find them online for free and some books are not even used. We pay the cash wallet fee on the basis that we are living on campus, while if we go with the same logic, it would mean that also non-students who are living on campus must pay their cash wallet fees.
Additionally, many universities establish their brand and sell themselves to students based on what they and their alumnus achieved, rather than focusing on strengthening and devoting resources to academics. This explains the fact that when a problem is caused by the university, their responsibility shrinks exponentially instead of taking full responsibility for the mistake. Such behavior makes it easy to save the brand’s name, like any other business in the world. Academia is not about saving the brand’s name, but it is about rationally examining and solving the problem instead of excuses.
Once again, these business strategies keep on supporting the fact that the student-customer relationship is present.
But ….
It is totally understandable to work competitively and think pragmatically but it is also important to put the record straight and acknowledge the fact that we are customers. Such acknowledgment would logicalize the interaction between universities and students, rather than creating confusion by putting everything under the Plato Academy motto hat.
“The student–customer idea follows the logic of a transformation of higher education into a competitive market and, ultimately, a very lucrative business”
Paricio Royo, 2017
